History
A comprehensive and growing history of Illyriad The birth of Illyriad The game was started in the 21st of February, in order to create a game with the depth of EVE Online, but as a normal free browser game. The Game Masters (GMs) wanted to make a game that they would wish to play themselves, which still changes as you logout, and which can work on as many browsers as possible. Most importantly, however, the GMs wanted to make a game which can be affected by the player, a game in which you aren't set into one direct play style but have options- Military or diplomatic? Alliance or no alliance? Peaceful or aggressive?- a game which is commonly called a sandbox. Note: big thanks to Nokigon for this good history of Illyriad! 2010- Major events Harmless and White This is arguably the largest part of Illyriad's history. It is the story of the two first and greatest alliances in the game, and how they clashed and fought to the death. When the game began, a number of players from EVE Online came to the game. Foremost among them was Jonny101, a player who in this game is known as Diablito. Others came from another game, and they formed Harmless? (at that time called DiggIK). The players from EVE formed Danger. Those from DiggIK had heard of Diablito, as in his role as Jonny101 he was a legend, who loved to manipulate people, to be the bad guy, so to speak. They therefore were curious, but wary- for good reason, as it turned out. Diablito wanted to be number one, and nothing would stop him from pursuing his aim. He immediately placed a spy in the rank of Harmless and joined an alliance called Danger, under Laura Christine (now EmilyJade). With some friendly banter, a joking war was declared which didn't go much beyond a couple of tongue-in-cheek forum threads. But Diablito didn't agree- and offered KP the chance for DA to be destroyed. He offered to declare war on every alliance in the game, in return for some resources (advanced and basic) so that he could start off the first mercenary alliance, the White Company. KP replied with the promise to think about it, but in actuality he was never planning on agreeing. Diablito didn't like this idea, and soon a number of exploits were put into operation, as well as a few low-scale raids. He joined White, and the two alliances had a very quiet battle. Harmless concentrated on their economy; White on their armies. This continued for a number of weeks, until Diablito started to turn really nasty. He offered to harass a player in Harmless, who shall remain nameless, until he quit the game. This was due to the complaints of impulsiveness coming from Harmless (the player was one of those unfortunate enough to be hit by thieves, and wanted revenge). Harmless never did this, and after Diablito's spy discovered that Mars, a member of Black (the White Company's training alliance) was in fact the alt of Naive, he started to begin the war in earnest. It soon became a question of waiting to when siege would come out, and then who would get siege engines first. The answer to that question is unknown, but White struck first. He tried to siege HonoredMule's capital, but ultimately he failed due to the efforts of Harmless. Harmless then sieged and destroyed Diablito's capital, Gay Paris, along with Diablito's armies and strong commanders. Afterwards, LauraChristine's capital was razed, and it was at this point when White begged for peace. They claimed that White was being destroyed by inactivity, and Harmless decided to give them a chance. They limited retribution to the leaders of White, offered terms of surrender and waited for the White answer. But soon they discovered that this was merely a delaying tactic, that White and its allies were simply gathering their strength. And with this, Harmless decided to destroy White completely. Medieval Knights After the fall of Gay Paris, the capital of Diablito in the white war, Diablito quickly realised he needed allies if he was to win the war against Harmless. Unfortunately, the only one he could find was one that was in fact doomed to destruction and failure- Medieval Knights, led by Tubana. Tubana led a group of people who rank amongst the most respected players of Illy, including The_Dude and Shrapnel. To the advantage of Diablito, although it did not save his alliance in the end, Tubana was not in the habit of discussing his actions with his officers, and chose to regard the NAP with White as a confederation. Yet further to Diablito's and Tubana's detriment, Tubana was in the habit of attacking Dlords members, which goes to show that it is very unwise to have more than one enemy at one time. In fact, Dlords became a greater enemy to Tubana than Harmless, in fact. Belargyle, the leader of Dlords, decided that enough was enough and formed a coalition of over half a dozen alliances, with Harmless and the Knights who say Ni (who later reformed as TMM- see later) being the most noteworthy. Tubana lasted barely 24 hours of the attacks from the coalition listed above before quitting MK and- weirdly- chose to make yet another enemy, in the remnants of MK. He attacked The_Dude, who along with the other members of MK sieged one of his cities. Dlords handled the rest, which obliterated Tubana from the game. The man left just one legacy besides memories- a message inside TD's inbox. The message read simply, 'You suck.' MK reformed as Phoenix, which is a fairly suitable name to my way of thinking- an alliance raising from the ashes of their old one. But hey, maybe that's just the poet in me. But this was not the end for PX. Shortly after Tubana was defeated, a peace agreement was signed between Belargyle and MK. The coalition swore to abide by any decisions made by the head of Dlords- but a short while later Ni broke the agreement. First, they attacked and defeated Rupe's armies, then they sent a huge multitude of forces at The_Dude. Sadly, none of the alliances who assisted Dlords took a stand against this, for which they all have their reasons. For instance, Harmless were unwilling to break their code of assisting only those allied to them, and chose to stand by their guidelines. For better or worse, the choices were made, and TD stood alone (the rest of Phoenix were sick of war and were unwilling to help) against the wrath of Ni. He left Illy then, returning only with the news of factions and the creation of the city move spell. Meanwhile, PX merged into Tranquil Vision, and Ni decided to leave them alone. STA and S&B In August, Skulls and Bones started relentlessly attacking one of the STA members, until they player left the game. Sta attempted to negotiate with S&B, but Zork (the leader of S&B) ignored their messages and continued to attack S&B. After some deliberation, the leaders of STA (Noryasha Grunk, duuvian etc) chose to declare war on S&B, and began sieging some cities. They maintained not to accept peace from Zork, although they would accept surrenders from members provided they left the alliance. Soon Zork feared that they had bitten off more than they could chew, and called in some favours from TRR and FoF. StA won through with the assistance of Crows Beak, however, and they continued to siege Zork until he and Borg left the alliance, when peace was negotiated. Shrapnel (-57, -115). This place on the map is marked by a statue of gold, of a dwarf in armour wielding an axe and a shield. The square is specially named, with simply the words 'In Memoriam: Shrapnel'. In addition, one of the sister alliances to FDU is known as Shrapnel's Memorial Academy. These two facts hint at comparatively little- that there was once a person in Illy called Shrapnel, that he died, that he was connected to FDU and that he was a large figure in Illyriad. But that isn't the full story of the man who in Illyriad was called Shrapnel, but in real life was called Case Deis. Shrapnel was the founder of the Free Defence Union, one of the oldest and finest training alliance. His alt was called Grog, who as a character was a startling contrast to Shrapnel- Grog was the leader of the Unified Orc Scourge, and his primary interests (as stated on his profile) were beer and elf women. US have now merged into BSH, so both of Case's account's legacies live on today. Case died on the 8th of October, 2010, to the shock of many. You can read his obituary here:http://starbeacon.com/legacy/x1644187719/Case-E-Deis Rest in peace, Case. TMM An alliance, many months ago, was formed by Juno. The players were huge, with about half a dozen or so ranking amongst the top ten players in the land. There was the leader, Juno. There was Nige, Ragmanon, Butler, yosh*tribes, AVa64 and cog soldier. They called themselves the Mal Motshans, and as one might imagine they claimed residence in Mal Motsha. As a point for historical curiosity, it seems that Mal Motsha is doomed to be claimed by many nations, as the Dark Star Dominion, otherwise known as TCol and BSH have followed TMM's example (albeit in a less violent manner) and have claimed TMM. The full history is long and can be seen later on in the 2011 section of this history, but it is rather interesting that BSH (who are the closest thing that the game has to a descendant of US) have chosen to make their own claim on Mal Motsha. This is beside the point, however. The Mal Motshans went about defending their claim on the land of Mal Motsha in completely the wrong way, as history appears to show us. They started sending threats to all inside Mal Motsha, saying that they had one extremely simple choice: Join, or die. A surprisingly small number of people took him up on his offer; it appears that most contacted were either stubborn or inactive. The unfortunate thing for TMM however (although maybe unfortunate is the wrong word- foolish may be closer to the mark) was that their ambitions led them to the path of US, who were still grieving over the loss of their leader, and possibly even more foolishly that of Toothless?. They gave the same threat they had been giving to others- and began their path to destruction. You see, the people of Illyriad were outraged by the audacity of such a man that would attempt to menace an innocent alliance, an alliance of new players, and an alliance that was vulnerable after the death of its leader. The first alliance to answer the plea for aid was Dark Blight, US' long time ally, declaring war minutes after US did. Then Middle Earth United, then Harmless, then Goonies, then Dlords, WOTP (now Curse), Peace, AEsir and finally Fremen empire (at the time Colonist Empires). TMM lasted barely two weeks before collapsing, the members fleeing the ruins of their alliance. They received no mercy however, although interestingly they asked for none. Soon, there was no trace of the Mal Motshans on the map. TMM was something of a turning point for Illyriad. The players had a choice: they could sit by, and let the bloodbath happen, setting a precedant, or they could take a stand and fight TMM. It's my opinion that it is that, combined with the devastating penalties for siege in the game, that has paved the way for the Illyriad we know today- where wars are strange events, where the attack of a new player is an event for wonder and amazement. TMM was a turning point for Illyriad, where the game could have followed the path of Travian, Tribal Wars, Grepolis and many more, and become 'just one of those games' where to have even a hope of surviving you had to be there in the beginning. Or it could've done what it did, and become a game where newbies are defended, fed and encouraged. Is this a good thing, or a bad thing? WE vs PoS/VALAR/Calaquendi This war does seem to be for slightly... dubious causes. Allegedly, the Prisoners of Society began to fight WE after Cyan, the largest player in WE, was accused of thieving from PoS, Calaquendi and VALAR members. Although the surviving members of WE, such as RMY Sgt-Shankstar, still deny the allegations to this day, they were believed by the trio of WE's enemies and they started to thieve, attack and eventually siege Cyan. Yearick and other WE members attempted to defend the man, but WE were badly outnumbered and Cyan and Yearick were sieged to the ground. The First Tournament- Armok's Blood Bowl While this tournament is not the acknowledge first tournament, since it was player built rather than designed by the GMs. It was the first competition between players, however, and for that reason it deserves its position in this list. A position, or a 'flag' was chosen in the southwest of the map. The winner would either be the person to hold the location for 48 hours or for the longest period over 35 days. 8 players were allowed to participate, all from different alliances. No military aid was allowed to be given. The players who participated were some random guy (actual name, not just me forgetting), Ulrich Heintz, Lionz Heartz, G0DsDestroyer, Amorphias (handicapped at one city), duuvian, Smoking GNU (handicapped at two cities and one inexperienced commander) and -hypocritical-. The third place contest got 50k gold and 1k adv res, second got 100k gold and 2k adv res, and the third place prize got the rest of the stockpile. This was 400k gold, 200 saddles, 3500 plate, 1000 swords, 1000 chain, 100 siege blocks, 1500 books, 2000 beer, 1250 cows, 600 horses, 1000 bows and 120k of the four types of basic resources. Most interestingly, however, GM Stormcrow offered 100 Brood mothers, Elder Weavers and Errant Knights. In the end, the winner was Amorphias, with second going to duuvian and G0Ds coming third. DB I feel that the efforts on my behalf to write DB's history again would be wasteful, since I have already written one history. Whilst some events come into 2011, about half is in 2010, so I have decided to categorise it here. http://illyriad.honoredsoft.com/wiki/Elgea:Dark_Blight/History 2011-Major Events The King's First Tournament Capture the flags! It was a fairly simple principle, in fact identical to the recent tournament to celebrate the game's second anniversary, except for there being less squares- 8 squares, at 500,500, 500,0, 500,-500, 0,500, 0,-500, 0, -500,500 and -500,-500. The person who had held the squares for the longest wins the tournament. Easy as. As you could probably imagine, Harmless won the tournament- holding their squares by 95 days. In second place, Tranquil Vision, holding the squares for 43 days, whilst in third came the Curse of the Wolves, holding the squares for 35 days. After that was Goonies, then Invictus, Dwarven Lords, Murder of Crows, Good Company, Toothless, Prisoners of Society, Aesir, Unified Orc Scourge, Crows Beak, the Commonwealth, the Order of the Phoenix, Hey That's My Bike, Res Ipsa Loquitor and Free Defence Union. Harmless got 20million gold to their coffers, 50 Elite Praetorian Guardsmen per PARTICIPATING member, 200 prestige per participating member and an Obelisk to be placed on the map in reward for their victory. You can see this statue at -511. Tranquil Vision got 10 million gold to their coffers, 35 Elite Praetorian Guardsmen per participating member and 160 prestige per participating member, whilst Curse got 6 million gold to their coffers, 20 Elite Praetorian Guardsmen and 120 prestige per participating member. 500,500 was won by Harmless, 500,0 was won by Goonies, 500,-500 was won by Invictus, 0,500 was won by Tranquil Vision, 0,-500 was won by Harmless, 0 was won by Tranquil Vision, -500,500 was won by Curse of the Wolves and -500,-500, which was won by Harmless. The alliances who won the square got 5 million gold to their coffers, plus 50 Praetorian Guardsmen and 100 prestige per participating member. Other statistics which may be of interest are as follows: · Harmless suffered the heaviest losses whilst attacking, losing 234k troops. After them come Invictus, then Dwarven Lords. · Tranquil Vision lost the most defending- a huge 477k troops were lost. After that came Curse of the Wolves, then Goonies. · HonoredMule lost the most troops during attacks, losing 64k troops, after which came Sloter5 then flipper. · Pasi lost the most during defence- 57k troops- after which came Shakyala then Tanis. · Out of all of the troops lost in attacks, 142k were Knights, 124k were trueshots and 113k were Stalwarts. · Out of all the troops lost in defence, 157k were Trueshots, 131k were Longbowmen and 95k were Pikemen. · 85 siege engines were lost in the competition. Whoever sent them needs a lesson in how to fight :P King's 2nd Tournament- Bloodthirst for Knowledge This tournament came surprisingly quickly after the first. Two months is all the people of Illy had to replenish their forces, but this new tournament was different to the first. The first tournament was an alliance tournament; this was a one-player tournament. The official line, in the role-playing aspect of things, was that a new museum of Natural History had been built at Centrum. King Sigurd, in the interests of achieving specimens of all of these different creatures, requested that the 'Lords and Ladies' of Illyriad send their troops far and wide to capture anatomical specimens of these creatures. The players of Illy would be paid 10 gold pieces for each piece of anatomical evidence captured, and the winners of the five categories- the Idividual and Alliance categories for Largest Collection and Most Unique connection, and in addition the Individual awards for best hunter of one specific animal. For the Individual winners of Largest Collection and Most Unique collection, they would receive 300 free prestige and 50 Elite Praetorian Guardsmen; for second 200 prestige and 30 elite praetorians and third they would receive 100 prestige and 10 Elite Praetorians. For each player in an alliance which wins a category, there is 150 prestige and 15 elite praetorians, for each player in a category runner-up there is 100 prestige and 10 Praetorian Guardsmen, and for each player in an alliance which comes third in a category there is 50 prestige and 5 Praetorians. Finally, each player who gathers the most animal parts from one specific animal get 100 prestige and 10 Praetorians. You couldn't steal the animal parts from other players. For each animal part gained, a player could get 10 gold pieces. Many people, when they read the rules of the tournament, assumed that Harmless would do what they had done in the previous tournament- and win. But in actuallity, it was Valar who was starting to take the lead, so Harmless resorted to less well known and simple tactics. They identified their main and most dangerous competitors- for example, Boromir, the number one attacker. Then, they watched the spawn spots around this person's city, and when a legion or a host came up they would send one diplomat to this square, thus employing the 'locking mechanism' which exists so that when you send troops to squares, you don't arrive disappointed (it's basically that when you send troops to NPCs they're locked in place and won't respawn elsewhere. The Devs decided this was not an exploit, and with some grumbling Illy got on with it. However, it did them no good. In the Alliance Category, Largest Collection, Valar won, Harmless came second and Peace came third. In the Alliance Category most Unique collection, Valar won, mCrow came second and Peace came third (Harmless came fourth). In the Individual Category Largest collection, Boromir won, darkone came second and ScottFitz came third. In the Individual Category Most Unique Collection, Raritor won, Sloter came second and Boromir came third. For Individual Hunters: Alligator: Kurdruk Anaconda: Rhea Arctic Wolves: Tanis Baboons: torshavn Black Bears: Jerec Cross Black Panthers: _duQ Brown Bears: pepe Cobras: Sir-Les Coral Snake: sooner Cyclopes: shawdow Elephants: Empress Olivia Fire Salamanders: Kumomoto Gharials: Raritor Giant Beetles: torshavn Giant Rats: Boromir Giant Scorpions: sooner Giant Scuttlers: Boromir Giant Snakes: Boromir Giant Spiders: Boromir Golden Monkeys: Kumomoto Ice Salamanders: Gunfo Jaguars: Yahweh Leopards: Amorphias Lions: Kumomoto Mammoths: Gunfo Massive Scarabs: _duQ Poisonous Crawlers: Beerman Polar Bears: Angrum Pumas: torshavn Rhinoceros: Amorphias Roaming Trolls: darkone Salamanders: threefootthree Saurians: Beerman Scaled Chargers: Boromir Scritchers: Boromir Simien Wolves: Korg! Snow Leopards: Telchar Tigers: Sir-Les White Tigers: Beerman Wild dogs: Boromir Wolves: Boromir 12,972,554 NPCs died in this tournament, and 5,099,860 player troops. This included 246 siege engines and 1662 Praetorian Guardsmen gained in the last tournament. _duQ Now, this incident definitely deserves it's place in the history book. It cemented the frame of mind which is held in Illy to this day, and made the game different to the other games which are out there which do not care about new players and the like. The Order of the Valar was an alliance that, like almost all other alliances, had a leader and then various officers. The leader was Azreil, but his main officers were players such as tigre, darkone- and _duQ, who you may remember from winning two categories in the second tournament. But _duQ had a player near him, a player called berberos. And after some territory squabbles between the two of them- there seems to be no true way to get to the bottom of this story. Berberos claims that _duQ thought he was too close to him, _duQ claims that berberos had insulted him and killed some of his caravans. I shan't take sides, but only tell you the facts. So, _duQ first bribed berberos to move, then threatened him and his alliance, Nightbringers, to remain silent. Eventually, _duQ placed a siege on berberos' town; but then Createure broke this siege with his cavalry. _duQ continued attacking berberos, in what he claimed was a great master plan to draw Harmless' troops away from them. If this is true, however, he was let down by the members of his own alliance. Meanwhile, berberos had gone to GC. Lorre heard about it, and started announcing loudly in Global Chat about how he would defend berberos, even at one point leaving PA so that he wouldn't draw his alliance into it. _duQ didn't defend himself at this point, which in the eyes of some proved his guilt. Meanwhile, Createure continued to defend berberos. A separate incident, which was actually the real reason that _duQ was ejected from his alliance, was that _duQ attempted to bump Anjire's caravans, then antagonise him by occupying close to his town. Things escalated, but then Azreil eventually decided enough was enough and kicked _duQ from the alliance. KT Come the spring of 2011, there was a small tidal wave of new alliances as the game enjoyed a surge of popularity- possibly due, in no small part, to the efforts of Beau Hindman. One of these new alliances was called Havoc Unleashed, and it was led by a man called Johnny112. He had a number of alliance members but a number of them didn't like his rule. They split off from the main alliance and formed a second alliance, known as Knights Templar. The players who formed this alliance were Baughb, StJude, Gaia Nutella Tulips, Majono and StJill. StJude was one of the most vocal players in Illyriad, which is probably why what started out as a war between alliances where nobody could use siege engines was turned into a war which earned the attention of some of the largest players in the game, and later turned into a war with some of the largest alliances in the game. So, KT began, under the leadership of Baughb and with StJude as his spokesperson (anyone who wishes to take that time to browse the Politics and Diplomacy subforum will probably understand why I shy away from using the word 'diplomat'), to thieve and blight some of the smaller players of Havoc Unleashed. It was only a matter of time until they were caught, since that was in the era where large groups of players on GC would watch a diplo return to its home- before the age of diplo visibility radii. Sure enough, they were caught, and war was started between Havoc and KT. It was largely a newb war, but it spiced up when a couple of KT members researched the siege technology and placed two sieges and a blockade on Johnny 112's capital, sieges which Havoc were unable to remove until three large players, Amroth Anguireal, Belthazor and myself, Nokigon, destroyed the sieges and blockade. Myself and Belthazor hit KT with some thieves and scouts, before stopping and allowing the conflict to continue at its usual rate. Soon, the alliance 'Empire of Qingdao' under the leadership of Clavicus Vile joined the fray, and after a couple of months of stalemate the war ended. Only for it to be restarted again, a couple of months later... That, however, sort of fizzled out. Around this rough time, Baughb was suspended for multiaccounting, then RES and Champ started fighting KT and Jude decided to declare war on nearly every alliance in Illyria. Soon Harmless joined the fight, but little records exist after that point because a far more momentous occasion happened and Jude drifted into inactivity. And with Jude, KT died pretty quickly. King's Third Tournament- Harvest the Elementals The official story, posted in the herald, was as follows. Elementals, apparently, have always existed in the land of Illyriad, and at this point in time Geomancer Herrolf, the master of Earth in the Circle of Five, announced that the Circle could now accurately predict where and when elementals will arise. He explained that they rose when the energies given out by death joined with the natural spirits in the land, and that the old tournament sites were therefore the place where hundreds of elementals would spawn over the next thirty days. In addition, they had heard troubling reports of these elementals spawning in abandoned cities, seemingly drawn by the death there like moths to a flame. The reality.... the Third Tournament was here. The 8 tournament squares from the first tournament was the sites for elementals to rise, 4 times a day, and to be able to capture these elementals you had to be the person occupying this square when the elemental was spawned. Originally there were elementals spawning into abandoned cities, however this was causing coding issues and were removed. 20 prestige was awarded for each elemental captured, and each person who got the most elementals in the individual squares would be awarded a commemorative statue. I won't post a day to day account of this tournament, since this document is already 8 pages long on Word and to do that would push it all the way up to 10. The long and the short of it was that the results are as follows: -500|500 (Fire Elementals) : Won by Jezma of Crows. 0|500 (Earth Elementals): Won by Tanis of Curse 500|500 (Air elementals): Won by Capricorne of Crow 500|0 (Water elementals): Won by gixy of Curse 500|-500 (Fire elementals): Won by Mandarins31 of VIC 0|-500 (Earth Elementals): TIE between Sloter, Pasi and flipper of VIC, WE and Dlords respectively -500|-500 (Air Elementals): Won by Llyorn of Jaensch of H? -500|0 (Water Elementals): Won by Ector the Fury of Crow. PA And Confederates vs S&B+Alts I find myself in the interesting situation where two of the last few events that I have written in this history, I was involved in. One may take from this conclusion the thought that I am a nosy guy, or that I have my fingers in a lot of pies. One would probably be more accurate if he/she had taken the first conclusion.... but I digress. PA was once, and in many ways still is (in its new form as II) a greatly respected alliance with a great number of confederates. Some of those confederates included mCrow, WoT, and yes, the Cave of Knowledge. PA was always very vocal, with Lorre often standing up for what he believed in. And of course, there was the duQ business mentioned earlier. Lorre won a lot of respect with his actions.... but in a lot of fields, he lost it also. Zork2010, a player only accessible through his sitter in S&B - at this point, we believed the sitter to be Borg, another S&B player- sent thieves to one of Lorre's cities, Tal'Pat'Ryn. A second wave was soon sent, as well as five armies from S&B players and a war declaration. However, this was a foolish move on the behalf of S&B, for Zork did not plan the arrival of many of the allies of PA. The following message was sent to all of the allies of Lorre: Most Loyal friends and Confederates of Lorre; Respected Alliance, alliance name here: Lorre and Persona Armoniosa {P A} request your support. Taken from the Diplomacy page in the Herald: Skull & Bones & B and Persona Armoniosa A} enter War Fri, Aug 05, 2011 War has been declared on {P A} after Lorre was hit by large number of thieves at his city “Tal'pat'Ryn.” These attacks were tracked to a former member of S&B. A second wave of thieves was launched, war was declared, and five armies were launched on Lorre along with several other armies launched at other players by S&B members. Tal'pat'Ryn’s defenses will soon fail - and with time, Lorre's city will likely fall. Send these words to your finest soldiers: Prepare your troops! Ready your diplomats! We wait only for word from Lorre, at which time the counter strike will begin! And, ladies and gentlemen, that is exclusive information from my inbox. In any case, the point is the same. The confederates of Lorre went to war against S&B, but speaking from a Cave point of view when we sent a siege against a S&B city known as Alexandria, we were struck by countless cavalry strikes that went far and beyond the military force that our scouts had led us to believe that we would be facing. The reason for this? The sender of the cavalry strikes was not from S&B, but from a Curse player known as roller. And on the forums, a known troll called Lionz Heart- a troll, however, who had been high up in the Curse leadership- accused roller of being the sitter of both Zork and Borg. The plot, as they say, thickens. Soon after, S&B fled to Curse. So, PA and co formed an embassy, contacted Iduna- the then leader of Curse- and we discussed condition. We were compensated for troops, and if I remember correctly Iduna was intending to punish roller in some way. However, the morning brought a new surprise. Roller, bringing the accounts Spirit and Borg, joined either VALAR or their sister alliance MAIAR. The S&B war was over, but a far greater storm cloud was gathering on the horizon. VALAR War So far, each year of Illyriad has involved the community going to war with one large alliance. Interesting coincidence; it leads me to wonder who the victim of 2012 will be... Anyway, shortly after roller took shelter in Valar Lorre and Amroth Anguireal, leaders of PA and Champ, declared war on Valar. At first, few people went to war alongside Lorre- Valar was, at the time, the second biggest alliance in the game, after all. Curse was also involved since they were attempting to get revenge from roller and spirit for abandoning Curse. And then Harmless joined in, starting a true war for the first time in 18 months according to Killer Poodle. After Harmless joined the fight, there was something of a tidal wave of alliance joining. WoT, Dlords, mCrow..... A lot of alliance joined the war against Valar. Why? Well, in my mind Kurdruk put it quite well. It could be one or more of 7 reasons: 1) Harmless want revenge for losing a tournament. Quite petty. 2) It's because of a small group of people are finally using their armies to back up their mouths. Certainly, during _duQ and S&B Lorre in particular was very mouthy. 3) Valar are bullies and this was their comeuppance. 4) It's because of Roller and Spirit, etc- due to Valar taking in bloodsoaked refugees this massive tidal wave of war has been sparked. 5) CONSPIRACY! 6) Some players are bored. Actually, this is more likely than one would think- Harmless had fun as one of its 5 motives for war. 7) All, several, or some of the above. The answer to these is one that you get for a number of important questions: the world may never know. Whatever the reason may have been, war arrived, in all of its fury, and whilst many expected a decent fight despite the great disparity in size- as seen in Tournament II, Valar had some damn good fighters- Boromir, a member of Valar, was at the time No.1 in Attack. And anyway, Valar were still pretty damn big. If they had held back and let themselves get attacked, and only sent out troops to destroy sieges, then they might have been able to form a stand that would be remembered forever. They could have crippled a number of alliances, but after all it is very easily said but not so easily done. And anyway, Harmless were good tacticians. It was almost certainly less easy than the way which I portray the combat. But this eventuality exists only in my mind, and either way, this was not what happened. Of course, not everyone joined the fight. Myself and Jasche, representing the Cave and VIC, both posted on the forums counselling peace, mostly because we were unhappy about the sheer weight of numbers, but as it happened our counsel was unnecessary. Peace arrived with the ejection of Azreil and darkone from Valar, and CristinaZah took the leadership of Valar in order to negotiate peace. The third world war of Illy was over. Tournament IV: The Undead Horde About halfway through December, the Rift was formed. Thein game background to this was that one of the Circle of Five's mages had been performing experiments in Ursor with the aid of some of the shamans of the Blood Reavers, when his experiment went disastrously wrong. What this meant for Illyriad: a new tournament was here, and it was different to any that have come before. The players had to occupy a standing stone with an army and then defend it overnight against the armies of Undead that came to meet you there. Alternatively, you could have occupied a square at the Rift in Ursor at 533|835. The object of this was that all the players were divided into Leagues according to their population, and they had to compete with other members of their League to gain experience for their commander. At the end of the thirty days, the winner was the one with the most experience for their commander in their League. He/she would get 450 prestige and a T-Shirt. For second would be 250 prestige an Illyriad T-Shirt, and third would be 150 prestige and a T-Shirt. The Undead varied in size and unit type, formed skeleton warriors to zombies to undead dragons. At the end of the tournament, the results were as follows. League A - Population 100k+ 1st - Naper 2nd - Naper 3rd - Torshavn League B - Population 100k-50k 1st - Silverlake 2nd - Createure 3rd - Sir-John League C - Population 50k-20k 1st - Sibh 2nd - Lune Noire 3rd - NightFury League D - Population 20k-5k 1st - Stealthy 2nd - Arthurian 3rd - Grisna League E - Population 5k-2k 1st - Ahaliel 2nd - BenDover 3rd - FortchernKavanagh League F - Population 2k-500 1st - Locke 2nd - Sansoran 3rd - R-Man League G - Population 500 and below 1st - Miradamian 2nd - Jadedthang 3rd - Lady Bethadhiell Yes, that's right: Naper got first and second place with two different commanders in League A. 2012- Major Events LWO War The orcs of the Black Skull Horde had earlier in the year formed the tightest packed mega-confederation in the game with the Colony and the Skullcrusher's Horde, a mega-confederation that is called the Dominion of the Dark Star. Based in Mal Motsha, it was a force to be reckoned with. In addition, they had a couple of allies who were not in the Dominion; such as the Armory, or the Cave of Knowledge (although the Cave has since joined this group). However, it is inevitable for an alliance of Orcs to be considered more aggressive, if not necessarily war-mongering, than most other alliances. And they were 'fundamentally opposed' to an alliance by the name of Love World Order, an alliance which was more of an anarchical alliance that promoted love and peace. This alliance started storming the cities of the Black Skull Horde with thieves, and when they were eventually caught they gave two reasons for their attacks. The first was that LWO was fundamentally opposed to BSH, as has already been stated, and the second was that they were allied to the Cave- who they considered to simply be DB. Since this offended my alliance, and in any case we were allied to BSH, the Cave went to war alongside BSH and TCol. The plan was that the Cave and BSH would perform the offensive, whilst TCol would stay in reserve and protect Dominion cities. As it turned out, this was unnecessary and TCol were free to give Dlords a run for its money in Mal Motsha. The Cave sieged 3 cities, and BSH sieged 2. Only one of the sieges, one from BSH, succeeded however- a combination of several bugs and forces from LWO killed a couple of sieges. However, the thing that defeated most of the sieges is the delaying tactics that LWO employed a number of times- whilst LWO Seaside amongst other cities were ready to fall, LWO attempted to call for peace. However, this was a delaying action, and sieges continued. Confessor's Palace, a city heavily defended by LWO belonging to Altaria, fell under a BSH siege reinforced by Cave troops. Eventually, LWO called for peace for real. Their main members scattered, and LWO was reduced to a fraction of their former power. Despite BSH originally attending to push for terms, Skull was persuaded that what had already been achieved was significant. This war was over. Tournament V: The 2nd Anniversary Surprisingly quickly for the GMs, the fifth tournament arrived around late February to celebrate the beginning of the third year that the game has been running for. And, in typical Dev style, they did it by killing a bunch of our troops. For each of the regions in the game, there was a square. 37 in all, they were a variety of terrain types and biomes. An alliance tournament, the winner of each square gained 25 prestige and 10 Praetorian Guardsmen per participating player. There were no second place prizes. The alliance that had the total highest amount of hours held through the squares got 1 year's worth of free service at the Enjin website which included a bunch of excellent tools. In addition to this they got a Tournament statue, 50 elitepraetorians and 50 scribes of Allembine per participating player. The second placed alliance gained 6 months of service from TypeFrag, a statue, 35 elite Praetorians and 35 Scribes of Allembine. The third place placed alliance gained the same as second, except with 20 elite Praetorians and scribes of Allembine instead of 35. The alliances that won squares are: Harmless H?: Azura, Farra Isle, Kumala, Lan Larosh, Qarosslan, Ragallon, Rill Archipelago, Stormstone Island, Tallimar, Tor Carrock, Ursor and Windlost Invictus VIC: '''Arran, Elijal, Keppen and Zanpur '''Victrix VICX: '''Djebeli and Larn '''Curse of the Wolves Curse: Fremorn, Meilla and Kal Tirikan Murder of Crows mCrow: Kem and Norweld Crows Nest nCrow: Keshalia and Tamarin D'Haran Empire DE: Kul Tar Toothless T?: Laoshin The Crows Crow: Lucerna Dwarven Lords Dlord: Mal Motsha, Taomist and Perrigor Knights Virtue ~KV~: The Wastes ~Tranquil~Vision~ Peace: The Western Realms and Middle Kingdom Absaroke Absa: Trome and Turalia EAGLES EYRIE EE: Wolgast Some statistics are that 21,162,565 troops died in this tournament. 8112289 humans, 6439081 elves, 4971448 dwarves and 1637486 orcs- as well as nearly a thousand tournament reward troops and 1074 Scrawny Wolves. Other statistics include: Sloter, fighting a 69k casualty battle in Tor Carrock, which was the biggest battle in the world at that time; Harmless posting a record for the largest number of troops on an encampment- 630k troops; Fremorn was the highest casualty square; and the poor Elf Trueshot, suffering 2.7 million casualties; Peace, losing 2.5million troops- the irony... 2013- Major Events Tba 2014- Major Events TBA